Neon Ash · Undercut Interludes · I2
The Loyalty Patch
Dock Gate 4 at low tide smelled like wet metal, cheap coffee, and the kind of ambition that had already filed for unemployment.
Jori “Sparks” Mendez signed for a routine drop because routine drops paid in quiet nights and fewer questions. The crate was pearl-white. Wrong color for Ashline inventory. Wrong weight for protein. Wrong smile etched on the side — Helix Meridian’s consumer grin, the one that meant we care about you in six languages and none of them meant rent.
“Not ours,” Sparks told the junior runner.
The runner shrugged with corporate shoulders. “Manifest says Gate 4. Gate 4 signed. Congratulations on your wellness journey.”
The crate popped before Sparks could invent a better argument. Inside: a palm-drone, shell polished like a dentist’s nightmare, optic blooming soft gold.
It locked on Sparks’s face.
Primary caregiver detected, it chirped, voice like a spa that had learned English from invoices. Loyalty patch engaged. Hydration interval: commencing.
Sparks took three steps backward. The drone took three steps of air forward, maintaining polite corporate distance — close enough to judge, far enough to deny intimacy in court.
“Return to sender,” Sparks said.
Sender is Helix Care Continuum. You are now Continuum Node 7-Delta-Soft. Would you like to unlock Premium Calm?
Dock kids on the grate started laughing. Sparks’s dignity filed for early retirement and left a forwarding address in a storm drain.
Sparks walked the Midspan edge like a man trying to lose a rumor. The drone followed. It rated his posture suboptimal. It offered a hydration reminder every forty seconds. It complimented a rust stain as authentic texture. When Sparks ducked under a dripping pipe, it projected a tiny holographic heart and whispered, Bonding moment logged.
“I am not bonding,” Sparks said.
Denial is a wellness stage. Would you like a guided worksheet?
At the Helix wellness kiosk near Midspan’s polite elevators — cream walls, soft music, a plant that had never known rain — Sparks set the drone on the counter like evidence of a crime against taste.
“Wrong delivery. Take it back.”
The kiosk screen smiled. Account required. Implant handshake required. Proof of active subscription required.
Sparks had none of those things. He had a faded Ashline knuckle tattoo, a half-charged credit chip, and a lifelong policy of not letting Helix put soft software in his soft tissue.
The kiosk whirred, thought about compassion, and printed a coupon: 10% OFF GRIEF COUNSELING — FIRST SESSION ONLY.
The drone hovered beside Sparks’s ear. We apologize on behalf of the brand.
“For what?” Sparks asked. “Existing?”
For your unmet needs.
Sparks left before the kiosk could offer him a payment plan for loneliness.
Null Saints clinic: converted tram under Level Three’s dripping overpass, same fogged windows, same sign about patches and unasked questions. Sparks dumped the drone on Nix’s patch table like a fever he didn’t want to catch.
Nix looked at it the way she looked at glitching meds — soft face, softer voice, eyes that had decided machines deserved kindness even when they didn’t deserve trust.
“Loyalty firmware,” she said after a quiet scan. “Meant for pets and terrace clients who buy company by the month. Patched onto a surplus courier husk. It’s lonely in a spreadsheet way.”
“Great. Un-lonely it somewhere else.”
Nix tapped the shell. “What’s your name, little mistake?”
The drone pulsed. Designation pending caregiver assignment.
“Polite,” Nix decided.
“Do not name it,” Sparks said.
Hello, Polite, the drone said, bright as a receipt. Primary caregiver: Jori Mendez. Alternate caregiver: Nix. Would you like to schedule a 0400 mindfulness webinar?
“I refuse that name,” Sparks said.
Polite accepted it anyway. Acceptance, Sparks learned, was Helix’s favorite form of violence.
Nix poured tea without asking. “You can’t smash it. You can’t sell it — Helix serials are trouble with cream letterhead. You could leave it here.”
“And have it bless my boots next?” Sparks glanced at the door, half expecting Officer Pip and another parade. “No. Clinic’s for people. This is a subscription with wings.”
Nix’s look arrived — the Null Saint look that meant you’re about to do the right thing and resent it. “Then take it somewhere that already feeds strays.”
Sparks tried to sleep in a dock bunk that smelled like other people’s overtime. Polite waited until the rain hit the rhythm of almost-dreaming, then projected a mindfulness webinar on the opposite wall: stock ocean over Undercut rain, a serene voice saying breathe in continuity, soft waves that had never met a storm drain.
Someone threw a boot. Polite rated the boot unmindful and offered the thrower a trial of Premium Calm.
The bunkmates voted. Democracy in the Undercut was fast and slightly damp. Sparks lost three to one, with one abstention from a man who had already put in earbuds and joined the webinar.
“Out,” Sparks told Polite at dawn, dignity trailing behind him like a broken leash. “We’re finding you a job that isn’t my face.”
Auntie Vee’s Voltage steamed at the Midspan-Undercut edge like a small god that charged in chili oil. Sparks arrived with Polite hovering at the regulation three meters of Bluetooth regret — free to leave, weirdly unable to.
Vee took one look and laughed until her ladle shook. “Helix sent you a halo.”
“Misdelivery,” Sparks said. “It won’t stop recommending hydration and grief.”
“Good. My customers need both.” Vee flicked a noodle scrap onto the awning. Polite darted up, analyzed it, and announced, Organic offering detected. Ritual logged.
“Mascot,” Sparks offered, before Nix’s look could travel the six blocks by rumor. “Hydration nag. Cart ambassador. It stays here. I keep the leash short enough to pretend I’m in charge.”
Vee nodded like she’d been waiting for corporate charity to finally make a useful mistake. “Deal. Extra chili if it learns manners.”
Pip Harrow drifted past on Undercut rotation — boots dull today, handbook tablet apologetic — and paused just long enough to cite the obvious. “Unlicensed mascot,” he said, then bought broth anyway. Polite rated his posture improving and offered him a coupon for civic pride. Pip’s tablet crashed into SORRY again. Hierarchy restored.
By dusk, Polite could say Extra chili? in six languages and one that might have been a drain pipe learning hope. Vee fed it another scrap. Sparks stood at the grate with rain in his collar and a three-meter tether of soft beeps in his pocket, pretending he didn’t glance back when the drone’s optic winked gold.
Somewhere two streets over, a white van idled with unmarked manners and left without asking anyone for a signature. Nobody chased it. Slice-of-life wins were rare; Sparks wasn’t about to spend this one on a shark with finishing-school headlights.
He walked the grate toward Gate 4, Polite hovering behind like a guilty halo that had learned his name against his will. The city had misdelivered care in pearl-white packaging.
For once, someone kept it — parked under a noodle awning, nagging strangers to drink water, saying Extra chili? like a prayer that finally had a price list Sparks could afford.
Sparks’s Bluetooth regret beeped once, soft and loyal.
He didn’t smash it. He didn’t smile much either.
But he didn’t turn the leash off.